University of New Orleans University of New Orleans
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University of New Orleans Theses and
Dissertations Dissertations and Theses
Fall 12-20-2013
Something Like "Yes"
Something Like "Yes"
Laura J. McKnight Ms.
University of New Orleans, [email protected]
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McKnight, Laura J. Ms., "Something Like "Yes"" (2013). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1750.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1750
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Something Like “Yes”
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Fine Arts in
Film, Theatre and Communication Arts Creative Writing
by
Laura J. McKnight
B.A. Nicholls State University, 2001
ii
Acknowledgements
I would like to show gratitude to a long list of people for teaching, guiding, entertaining,
and delighting me. Without them, this collection would not be possible.
First of all, I would like to thank Drs. Randy Bates, Doreen Piano, Rick Barton, John
Hazlett, and Elizabeth Steeby, as well as Jed Horne, Richard Goodman, and Henry Griffin for
the important things they have taught me during my time at UNO. I would also like to thank
former staff member Rebeca Antoine for helping me whenever needed.
My gratitude extends to my fellow students, who also served as teachers for me in many
ways, as well as sources of inspiration and encouragement. I am grateful for so many classmates,
but I offer a special thanks to the following individuals: Guy D. Choate, Coleen Maidlow,
Coleen Muir, Barry Fitzpatrick, Summer Wood, Amber Wood, Lea Downing, Cate Root, Josie
Scanlan, Whitney Mackman, Kat Stromquist, Alexandra Reisner, Erin Grauel, Laura Mattingly,
and Melissa Remark.
Also deserving of thanks is John Coltrane, for allowing me the focus to write these pieces,
as well as the City of New Orleans, Frenchmen Street, and the artists, writers, musicians, and
characters for making this place the magical place that it is.
I would especially like to thank my parents, sister, and godfather for everything they have given
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ... iv
Introduction ...1
Marking Birthdays with Hurricanes...5
New Orleans is Something Like “Yes” ...15
The End of Fat Tuesday ...25
My Name is Welmon Sharlhorne ...29
A Night at the Red Carpet Inn ...51
Wolf Bitch Is Coming to Get You ...61
Grieving the Pies I’ve Never Eaten ...85
Sunday Brunch ...90
Kaboom ...95
Sunset on the Beach in Haiti ...98
Trekking the Himalayan Foothills ...117
References ...123
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List of Illustrations
Illustration 1 ...4
Illustration 2 ...24
Illustration 3 ...60
Illustration 4 ...84
1 Introduction
When people write about South Louisiana, they often note the especially strong
attachment to the land—and water—here. This odd delta landscape, formed by centuries of
annual flooding by the Mississippi River, helped create the strange and wonderful culture that
Louisiana is famed for worldwide. Growing up in this part of the world, I naturally developed
strong ties to the bayous, swamps, marshes, the Mississippi River, and the French Quarter---not
just as scenery, but as inspiration for and integral components of the music, food, language, and
personalities that I adore. To me, these settings are almost human in their personalities and
moods—and in the characters and events they tend to produce. The more I listen to people’s
stories, the stronger I believe that the eccentricity found here is intimately tied to this terrain, to
this place. As I began traveling abroad, I noticed that the most magical spots tend to share similar
strong connections between landscape and culture, a dynamic in which place becomes a
character.
The following collection of essays encompasses a diverse set of topics, backdrops, and
themes—graffiti, dive bars, Mardi Gras, Haiti, hurricanes, heartache, grief, anger, insecurity,
wonder—but the one thread that ties them together is place. In most of these essays, the setting
functions as more than a backdrop for the action, but as an influential character in itself. Place as
a character becomes a part of the story or an important reflection or inspiration of the action or
other characters.
A tumultuous setting like South Louisiana often produces stories of joy and grief—and
perhaps more importantly, joy within grief. Essays like “Marking Birthdays with Hurricanes,”
“New Orleans is Something Like ‘Yes,’” “Sunday Brunch,” “Grieving the Pies I’ve Never
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South Louisiana and how joy and grief often go hand-in-hand. These pieces express a raw
determination to live to the fullest. With essays like “New Orleans is Something Like ‘Yes’” and
“Kaboom,” I hope to present the sometimes tired concept of Louisiana’s eccentricity in fresh,
creative ways.
Sometimes a place can best be captured in the form of a person. In “My Name is Welmon
Sharlhorne,” I strive to profile a person who reflects the lively, interesting, and maybe even
dangerous nature of the city itself. As with New Orleans, my love for Welmon likely shows,
maybe even unintentionally at times, but it’s a love that doesn’t ignore faults. I try to present
Welmon and the city as complex characters with both beauty and darkness and sometimes beauty
that cannot exist without the darkness.
Sometimes a person—or at least a person’s struggles—can best be captured through a
setting. In “A Night at the Red Carpet Inn” place inspired and reflects an inner exploration of
universal ideas like insecurity and instability. On a narrow level, the piece looks into the
self-questioning and feelings of anxiety and failure that can come with not having a space to call your
own. On a broader level, the essay looks into the transient nature of my generation, the first to
experience a collective “prolonged adolescence” by waiting until later in life to reach the
traditional markers of adulthood—marriage, children, home ownership. We are a so-called
“slacker” generation of wanderers with no place of our own, maybe even no identity of our own,
which can make a one-night stay in a skanky hotel feel like paradise.
“Wolf Bitch Is Coming to Get You” uses an even more ominous setting to express
themes of transience and powerlessness. This piece focuses on the fear and loneliness that can
arise when living in a dangerous, isolated place—and how in the absence of community,
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The final two pieces take readers out of Louisiana and into Haiti and Nepal. These
foreign settings could seem unrelated to the remainder of the collection, but both of these
countries exude a familiar vibe I can best describe as “unbridled soul.” The lively, slightly
rebellious spirit found in Haiti and Nepal helped produce stories that fit in well with a collection
centered on South Louisiana.
In writing these essays, I drew inspiration from a range of authors, both fiction and
nonfiction. John Steinbeck, and Cannery Row in particular, showed me that a setting can have a
personality. David Sedaris and Anne Lamott taught me that mundane events in the life of a
normal person can become fodder for extraordinary writings. David Foster Wallace changed my
world with his brilliant displays of creativity in presenting inner journeys. Joan Didion and
James Baldwin also showed me that an author’s particular voice can give new life to hashed-out
topics and enable readers to see a subject from different and mind-opening perspectives. These
authors showed me that while a lie can tell the truth, the truth can also tell the truth—and in a
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5
Marking Birthdays with Hurricanes
August 2008
I am 28, almost 29.
The apocalypse, in the form of Hurricane Gustav, is on its way to my hometown of
Thibodaux, Louisiana, as well as Houma, the nearby city where I live, but I am on my way to the
Rock N’ Bowl in New Orleans.
In my childhood years, storms meant boarding your windows, buying batteries, and
playing cards with family until the wind stopped screaming outside. But Hurricane Katrina
wiped away the days of slaphappy, party-ready attitudes toward storms, replacing our fun with
grave, escape-ready, panic-charged fear. Before Katrina, my neighbors would celebrate the
vacation from work and school. Instead, as Gustav approaches, they are crowded around hills of
sand in parking lots throughout our city, sweating as they shovel sand into bags, continuing to
shovel even after the metal scoops clink and scrape against empty pavement, as through the
world is about to end and this one last sprinkle of sand in a bag might save them.
Gustav is scheduled to rip into coastal Louisiana early Sept. 1. So on my birthday, Aug.
29, everyone I know is either packing, leaving, or caught in the intense battle of whether to stay
or go, a dilemma that seems insane to anyone who doesn’t live in hurricane land. My neighbors,
friends, and family are deciding whether to withstand violent winds and water or brave
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leaves most with a pinched, glazed expression, lips drawn and eyes open but empty, seeing only
scales weighing whether to gamble or fold. Most fold; the stakes are high this time.
Earlier this week, my mom tells me she has acquired an ax, in case she needs to chop her
way out of the attic, but I find this information more nauseating than comforting. I am relieved
when she and my dad instead board the house, cram the family photos and keepsakes into their
truck, and head to Arkansas. I spend much of my birthday packing my own prized possessions –
mostly photos, my favorite books, and special artwork into plastic crates, distributing the most
critical treasures to my parents for delivery to Arkansas and the second-tier keepsakes to a family
friend with a two-story house on high ground. I haul furniture and books and knickknacks to the
second floor of my own apartment, which sits just a few feet above sea level and precariously
close to a large, swampy lake. As I hoist chairs and trinkets upstairs, I imagine the plausible
contents of the lake – alligators, snakes, slimy algae, tangled moss, broken tree limbs,
prehistoric-looking fish, lost nets, rotted cars, dead cats, murder victims – washing into my living
room in one giant rush of swamp water. I picture myself stranded at the top of the stairs, staring
into the watery green-black muck, ready with my stash of military MREs (Meals Ready to Eat)
and Kung-Fu sword but wishing I had bought the cheap kayak at Academy Sports. Too late now,
I think, as I push heavy chairs away from windows, and decide which of my pants, shirts, skirts,
and shoes I definitely want to keep. One of my roommates calls to discuss sandbags for our
home. I tell her I will pack, plan, prepare.
But I refuse to sandbag on my birthday. I will do it tomorrow.
Tonight, I am riding to the Rock N’ Bowl, the place where my friends originally planned
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heeded the warning, which leaves a small and curious collection of holdouts attending the Rock
N’ Bowl for a performance by ReBirth Brass Band. The usually energetic band members look
grim and nervous. They play a brief set of their classic songs, but somehow the music sounds
more solemn than raucous tonight. During a break, they don’t mingle with the crowd or sip beer;
they sit huddled together near the bowling lanes, talking in quiet voices. I want to walk over and
request “I Feel Like Funkin’ It Up,” but they look like they wish to avoid funkin’ anything up, so
I don’t ask. My godfather uses his phone to pull up satellite images of Gustav and we hold the
images next to our faces and pose for photos, our playful smiles and mocking saucer-eyes a
touch disturbing, like hurricane versions of Day of the Dead skeletons.
The next performer, Kermit Ruffins, would make a fun Day of the Dead celebrant – a
cheerful, laidback skeleton in a snappy blue suit and signature do-rag tied beneath his fedora, the
label on his shadow box announcing “El trompetista.” Tonight, Ruffins challenges the grave
atmosphere by sauntering on stage and pulling out his trumpet with the most non-frazzled look I
have seen in the past 24 hours. His entire demeanor basically shrugs at the storm, and this makes
me feel like everything might be all right. Where ReBirth acts unnerved and Kermit uninterested,
Rock N’ Bowl owner John Blancher appears un-tethered to anyone else’s reality. He jumps
onstage and grabs the mike several times, interrupting the music to make passionate pleas for
everyone not to leave New Orleans.
“You DON’T evacuate New Awlins when there’s a storm by CUBA!” he yells repeatedly
into the microphone. “The blessed Muthah will protect us!” he shouts, pointing wildly to an
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John Blancher is making me very happy. Later, I dance with him, and he buys me a
drink, offering me a few moments of birthday fun before doomsday – and a bit of questionable
comfort about my decision to stay in the storm’s path.
I have chosen to gamble, partly because I work for a newspaper, and such tragedies offer
the most important – and most exciting – chances to help by delivering news to evacuees anxious
to know the exact toll collected by the storm. I also remain behind, because I want to witness the
demise of my birthplace. But also to avoid getting stuck again in a place like Milwaukee…
August 2005
I’m 25, almost 26.
I am sitting in the New Orleans airport Aug. 27, glancing at newspapers and scoffing at
histrionic headlines about a storm swirling in the Gulf of Mexico. By now, I have ridden out a
roll call of tropical storms and hurricanes of varying categories and effects: attacks from Allison,
Isidore, Lili; a scare from Georges and maybe a Bill; and threats from nameless others.
Old-timers talk about Betsy and Camille with awe and reverence, but at 25, I maintain the reckless
indifference common to younger generations of bayou dwellers. We’ve heard the urgent
warnings issued by ecstatic weathermen and neurotic seniors, the admonitions to run or die,
followed by anticlimactic damage that proves more inconvenient than dangerous. We’ve
survived power outages, school makeup days, flooded streets, cabin fever and family closeness.
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This morning, I am relieved to catch a plane to my aunt and uncle’s Milwaukee home for
a brief birthday vacation. I feel a bit guilty leaving the other news reporters to fill my duties in
covering Hurricane Katrina, but not too guilty. I smile to myself as I sit cross-legged on the
airport carpet, knowing I will avoid writing hypocritical news stories that advise everyone else to
evacuate, while knowing that I never would. I accidentally picked the perfect time to escape, I
think. Monster storm?Right. They say that every time. All that chaotic preparation for another
false alarm.
But by the time my plane lands that afternoon, Katrina has morphed into an actual
impending nightmare, washing the smirk off my face. My relatives try to sympathize as I stare
into their television screen watching, estranged from home and powerless to help anyone I love
as the monster marches toward them through the Gulf. But my relatives are citizens of this
foreign place where I am now trapped, a strange land of dry basements, yeast-scented air, and
land far above sea level, safe from oceanic ravages. Wisconsin is okay – I like beer and cheese –
but I cannot get gumbo, crawfish po-boys, Yat accents, brass bands, unpredictable streetcars, or
French Quarter men in butt-less leather chaps in Wisconsin and suddenly, I just want all these
clichés of home. Even the butt-less leather chaps.
By the time my birthday arrives, the same day Katrina strikes, I cannot contact any of my
family or friends, and I cannot get home. In some ways, I can never get home.
It’s bright, sunny, beautiful in Wisconsin. The air is calm. In Louisiana, people are
fleeing, screaming, drowning. In Milwaukee, people are riding their bicycles, visiting the art
museum, ordering sandwiches from Subway. I try again and again on my aunt’s
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near Waveland, Mississippi, but I only reach an automated message, delivered in a robotic
female voice: “I’m sorry. The number which you are dialing is located in an area that is
experiencing a hurricane.”
Everyone I know survives. No flooded homes, at least among my immediate family and
friends. But Katrina ravages any confidence I held in our nation’s ability – and desire – to care
for its own people. At 26, I miss the days when America seemed competent and good. I also miss
the adventurous, survival-style bonding among family that comes only from weathering storms
together…
August 1992
I am 12, almost 13.
I am riding through my hometown, a tiny city tucked into a south Louisiana bayou,
staring from the passenger seat of my dad’s truck at the plywood that now shields the windows
and doors of nearly every home, creating the kind of scrappy barricades one would expect in
advance of a B-film zombie attack or alien invasion. It’s a weekday afternoon and usually,
Thibodaux would resemble a lot of southern towns with children on bicycles, senior citizens
caring for their lawns. But over night, the place has changed into a ghost town of silent, empty
streets bordered by wooden zombie-shields. The sun shines and a light breeze blows, but the
beautiful weather carries an ominous undercurrent, like a gleaming fake smile; the wider the
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Still, I am 12, so the foreboding vibe in the air only electrifies me. I bask in the tropical
breeze and sunshine, I gape at the alien-invasion barriers in fascination and think about how
much fun the floodwaters could be.
Where I grow up, flooded streets represent cause for celebration. My street floods every
time the sky dumps rain for more than an hour or two, and I watch with glee from my bedroom
window as the water inches toward my home, past the ditch, past the willow tree, within feet of
our front door. Flooded streets mean a vacation from school. They mean escaping loud,
overstuffed classrooms to wade through my neighborhood in search of magical sights: an older
boy snagging eels from the ditches to sell to Asians who make purses, my neighbors smiling as
they row around their home in a pirogue, gangs of neighborhood children splashing water into
the air.
Heavy rains turn the paved playground of our streets into a water park, a thrilling change
of pace from long days of bike-riding, snowball-eating and dancing in my neighbor’s driveway.
Flooded streets mean my sister and I beg my mom to let us blow up our plastic inner tubes, so
we can sail through our overflowing, eel-infested ditch, even though she always says “no.” So I
settle for wading instead, kicking my legs through the cool, dirty rainwater and watching it lap
across our street in tiny ripples, seeing guppies wriggle across our street in teeny groups.
Hurricane Andrew hits tonight, and I am excited. Worrying is for grownups, but the
grownups around me are not worried. My dad nails plywood over our windows and doors, with
no more nervous energy than if he were mowing the lawn or checking the oil. Just another chore.
From inside the house, the boards make the daylight disappear, turning our home into a cozy
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Hurricanes form an ordinary part of life for us, so I don’t understand why my relatives in
Arkansas and Texas make frantic phone calls to my parents when a storm approaches our home.
Their fear makes me giggle and roll my eyes. In even younger years, I would hurricane make
season into a craft project, an excuse to build a tiny shelter in my bedroom closet, a little hideout
equipped with batteries, flashlights, ghost-story books and a jug of water. I would put my
favorite toys on my bed, so my Pound Puppies and My Little Ponies and Garbage Pail Kids cards
could avoid any rising water.
Tonight, we hide in our shuttered living room, sitting around in the dim light as though
nestled into an ark, waiting to hear the wind and rain. The winds start to whistle, softly at first,
then screaming loud and violent. I can hear the clattering, ripping, breaking as the wind wrestles
limbs from trees, knocks down our fence, tears the roof from our shed, but I feel safe inside. My
sister falls asleep as the storm builds, and I find this hilarious. Then the wind slows and stops, as
sudden as a roller coaster shuttling from full speed to total halt when it reaches the end of a run. I
grab my cheap, turquoise camera and rush out into the eye of the storm, running behind our
house to capture the gray skies and flattened sugarcane fields. I marvel at the cane that usually
grows much taller than me, now pinned straight to the ground as though stomped by a group of
angry giants. Soon, the air starts whirling again and I go back inside to snuggle with my family
as the wind and rain rage against the outside world.
Hours later, my sister and I emerge from our cave to survey our neighborhood,
scampering through the new wonderland of fallen trees, tossed branches, knocked-over
playhouses, and twisted gas-station canopies. The days-long power outage that follows is not so
much fun, as my family struggles to sleep each night in thick heat. The four of us sleep
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neighbor’s generator. The blaring generators, August heat, and oppressive humidity make us
miserable every night, yet the overall vibe maintains an air of adventure, the feel of an
impromptu family campout – without even having to leave the interior of our home.
Two days later, my birthday arrives. The electricity remains out, which only makes my
birthday cake, baked at a friend’s home in a neighborhood with regained power, more special.
Later that day, our electricity returns, and my family deems that a special gift from Louisiana
Power and Light. I am 13 and cannot imagine hurricanes as anything other than adventures…
August 2008
I am 29 when I head back to Houma from the Rock ‘n’ Bowl. A day later, I gather vegetables,
condiments, and any other contents of the refrigerator and freezer, including remnants of my
birthday cake, and toss it all into a dumpster to avoid returning to the stench of food decayed in
the August heat. I turn off all lights, unplug all appliances, and give the apartment one more look
before heading to our paper’s newsroom in Thibodaux. I drive down deserted roadways with two
garbage bags of clothing, canned food, MREs, batteries, a flashlight, and a cheap sleeping bag.
In Thibodaux, I station myself in a cubicle and start making hours of calls to emergency officials,
scribbling down their updates on storm preparations and passing them along to editors.
I am nestled in my sleeping bag early Sept. 1, surrounded by cubicles and computers,
when a much-weakened Gustav begins hitting the shore about 40 miles south of us. The
hurricane delivers destructive winds and rain, but not nearly so much as forecasts predicted. A
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streets like metal tumbleweed. Other signs flap violently in the wind, threatening to become
projectiles. We lose power, but our generators keep the computers and selective lights fueled, so
we can chip away at endless amounts of work.
Gustav is a semi-dodged bullet, a grazing bullet, for most. The storm shreds roofs; tears
away chunks of homes, schools, and churches; and ravages the electrical grids, yet spares us the
predicted utter annihilation. I expected my apartment to disappear. Instead, my home suffers only
a battered fence and a few missing shingles. Still, some lose their homes to the winds, and
storm-related political drama abounds, supplying us with continuous fodder for the insatiable beast
known as the news.
But sometimes, in quick moments snatched here and there from the grueling gnaw of the
grownup world, I catch glimpses of a more magical one: Driving through an arch carved by
chainsaw into the trunk of a fallen tree, navigating spider webs of downed power lines stretched
across roadways, seeing layers of stars now unclouded by city lights, singing loud songs late into
the night, exploring a church yard of toppled oaks to discover a concrete saint whose
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New Orleans Is Something Like “Yes”
New Orleans is taking a break from schoolwork late Sunday night to slouch over to Frenchmen
Street and into the Apple Barrel, a place aptly named as it feels insular, wooden, a bit rotted from
the inside. The Apple Barrel is a claustrophobic’s bad dream, an electrician’s nightmare with its
cramped space taken up almost completely by a small bar and several round tables and chairs
near the windows. A narrow strip of floor runs down the center, stopping after about 15 feet.
The place feels not much larger than the living room in my shotgun home – but the ceiling here
feels much lower. I fight a constant impulse to duck, to at least hunch over and crunch myself
into some formation that will have my body demand as little space as possible.
Musical performers are relegated to a rectangle of space opposite the bar and tables, right
near the front door, so that every person entering or leaving the Apple Barrel must step
awkwardly – or triumphantly – in front of the band, blocking the performers from view with
every cigarette break or breath of fresh air. The bench outside, nestled right into the windows of
the Apple Barrel, usually features a collection of the same elderly men with various flamboyant
canes and hats who sink into the rickety wooden seat with the exhaustion of 65-plus years of
scrounging for dollars and High Life, sweat running along the lines in their faces no matter the
temperature outside.
To enter tonight, I must pass within inches of the keyboard player, a scowling funk artist
who yells “I know YOU!,” into my face, and then do a clumsy sidestep to avoid bumping
face-first into the singer, a tall and graceful woman with a muscular voice. I squirm my way to the bar
and order a Guinness, laugh as a thirsty black-mouthed cur named Lucy stands on her hind legs
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New Orleans is knowing that this dog is a black-mouthed cur named Lucy, because by the time I
finish patting the dog’s head and complimenting her penchant for beer, I have already befriended
Lucy’s owner, Jeremy. By the time the band breaks, I know that Jeremy is from Florida, has
lived in New Orleans for several years, loves his work at Adolfo’s restaurant, and found Lucy
wandering the streets here. By the end of the first set, I have “dog-sat” Lucy several times,
gripping her leash while Jeremy takes bathroom and beer and cigarette breaks. People ask my
permission to pet her. New Orleans is giving people in a bar permission to pet a dog that belongs
to a guy I just met five minutes ago.
New Orleans is cleaning your clothes in a red-lit bar that one night presents a jaw-harp
gutter-punk band, another night a Flamenco guitarist, another night a classic rock outfit, another night a
bounce-rap squad fronted by an effeminate man in neon-pink spandex, another night the
bartender behind the mike. It’s dropping your underwear on the filthy floor and knowing you
should just throw those underwear in the garbage or at least wash them again but you don’t.
New Orleans is being offered more free marijuana in this bar-slash-Laundromat than you
have ever been offered in your entire life. New Orleans is saying “no” to the weed only to have
some dude leave some for you anyway, a dusty crumble of dark green plant from Mexico, lying
in a tiny pile on the wooden counter next to the dryers, forcing you to say “yes.”
New Orleans is dancing until your legs are sore and your body so dehydrated from sweat and
beer and masses of gyrating people that you have to leave the club for air or you will absolutely
17
or eggrolls are left decaying in the metal vats at Hank’s gas station, because if not, you will
throw up whatever alcohol has not exited via your pores. New Orleans is standing inside a
convenience store around midnight, cramming old eggrolls that taste of fried grease into your
mouth in the fluorescent lights so that you can dance until 3 a.m. Or later.
New Orleans is embracing the outrageous, including the outrageous wet heat of summer. It’s
deciding to just forget taking that extra shower because the minute you walk outside, your pores
will erupt with sweat. It’s giving up on that bit of makeup, the carefully ironed hair, the cute shirt
that will only collect liquid beneath its sleeves. It’s feeling that first rush of heat in the spring and
telling yourself that really, you don’t mind the summers here all that much, it’s not that bad. It’s
telling yourself that in the summer, everyone looks kinda sexy, all steam-hot and glistening, like
every person is caught in the height of passion. It’s hoping that the sweat marks on the front of
your tank top, the hair damp and mashed against your forehead, somehow make you look
tragically sultry, like some southern gothic princess, all angst-ridden and feverish, fresh off the
Streetcar Named Desire. It’s knowing that you may picture yourself as Blanche DuBois, but in
reality, your heat-inspired scowl and struggling steps make you look more like Ignatius Reilly.
New Orleans is strolling down Frenchmen Street and stopping near a nightclub to have a total
stranger beg, I mean implore you to stick your fingers into his po-boy and dig out some
barbecued shrimp to taste. And you do. And they are delicious. You say so, and he makes you
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New Orleans is licking the powdered sugar from beignets off your fingers as your friend snaps a
photo of the guy seated on a bench outside Café du Monde, the guy with a leg missing who has
just somehow hopped out of his wheelchair and is now tenderly petting the large iguana perched
on his shoulder.
New Orleans is watching a bright red-and-green streetcar rattle past like an oversized toy train,
then watching another rattle by, then another, all in the span of 10 minutes and shaking your
head and wondering why in the hell you just saw three damn streetcars in a row when you hadn’t
seen a single one in the past three hours. New Orleans is asking three different people what time
the streetcars stop running at night and getting three different answers and all of them are wrong
because there is no answer that involves an actual point in time. The real answer is that the
streetcars stop when they damn well feel like it.
New Orleans is standing next to the Mississippi River at night, watching the entire world – yes,
the entire world – drift and float by in the form of tankers and tugs and paddlewheel steamers,
and then getting kicked off the river – because the Riverwalk actually closes at midnight – by
two security officers in a golf cart who pretend to run you over as a joke, grinning as they swerve
closer to your feet. You rant about the idea of closing a whole damn riverside and then go get a
drink, because what else would you do? They can shut down the whole damn riverside, but they
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New Orleans is a pirate’s hangout, a jazz nursery, a wild graveyard, an unlikely city in an
impossible place – an impossible city in an unlikely place? – a bunch of strange stories
remembered in fragments like bits of a burlesque dream or a clownish nightmare, maybe a dream
and a nightmare, stitched together the morning after like a hobo blanket, all secondhand thread
and mismatched pieces.
New Orleans is hearing a live band playing “Hey Pocky Way,” singing “Jacques-imo fi nah nay”
as you walk into Rouses in the French Quarter to buy coffee and stamps. New Orleans is
forgetting to ask the cashier for stamps, because you just noticed Satan standing in line behind
you, grinning as he waits to buy the Coors Light tallboy cradled in his red hands. But no sweat,
the cashier is too busy chatting with Satan to notice your absentmindedness.
“How are ya, bruh?” Satan asks, his teeth glowing white from among the thick red paint
that coats his face. “Good,” the cashier says, sliding your coffee over the scanner. “I’m pretty
hung-over,” Satan confesses, “might as well have this for breakfast.” Satan’s smile grows even
wider as he brandishes his beer, so you smile back at Satan, trying not to stare at his ornate
red-and-black boots, and then finally remember your damn stamps.
New Orleans is smack talk delivered by brass, trombones warring from either side of Frenchmen
20
another trombone answering from down the street. Then all three sauntering toward each other,
blaring jazzy taunts back and forth until they meet in the middle of Frenchmen and join together
to face off with a taxi cab, forced to stop in the street as the trio marches toward the taxi’s
windshield, trombone slides thrusting forward like musical swords. And then a tambourine
ruckus breaks out on the sidewalk, adding a din of rhythmic pounding and jangles to the
impromptu showdown. Someone grabs a large plastic garbage can and begins beating in time.
New Orleans is a worship of music that means a few trombones can literally stop traffic.
New Orleans is seeing one of the trombone players, who happens to be visiting from
Philadelphia, and thinking that something about the expression on his face, the particular way he
is smiling, says that he has never before hopped from club to club carrying his horn, receiving a
forceful welcome – actually more like a command – to join every band for a song or two.
Something about his wide eyes makes you think that this trombone player has probably never
faced off with other trombones on the street, never roared into oncoming traffic, never shut down
a street with his horn. His smile reminds you of the way you looked when at age 10, you saw
snowfall for the very first time, felt the unreal white powder as it fell too close to the equator. His
eyes remind you of the way you looked when at age 16, you boarded a boat to the Caribbean and
for the first time saw water that was blue.
New Orleans is the un-bathed man tripping down Decatur Street begging for change, the one
who promises, who swears to Gawd that he will not spend your hard-earned money on no
hamburger, not on no food at all, that he will only use your money to buy alcohol. New Orleans
21
this man that you do not have a dollar, that you just spent what you are pretty sure could be your
last dollar bill on the jukebox. New Orleans is using the jukebox as a valid reason for not
offering a dollar and having this man reply with a polite, “Yes, ma’am.” He understands. It’s 2
a.m., it’s been a long day, and you needed to hear that damn Teena Marie song. New Orleans is
encountering yet another truly down-and-out-looking man who says “God bless you” even
though you give him nothing, not even an excuse involving a jukebox.
New Orleans is walking past a male bum in his 50s, lounging on the sidewalk with no
shirt on, watching him funnel some substance from a rolled-up newspaper into his mouth. As
you walk past, headed toward the sound of saxophones, you are telling your friend Ben, in a
matter-of-fact tone, “I need to be back home by 11 p.m., because I need to start accomplishing
things in life.” New Orleans is having the shirtless bum look up at you from the sidewalk, and
with genuine curiosity, ask “Why?”
New Orleans is life – sweaty, fermented life. It’s the kind of buck-jumping life that dances back
death with glitter umbrellas, screaming trumpets and feet tapping on caskets. It’s post-Katrina
graffiti on a block of cement, surrounded by overgrown weeds and abandoned homes, the
jagged-letter cry of some spray-paint prophet screaming: “There is life in this Necropolis.”
New Orleans is an impossible conga line, or at least a conga line that you thought would be
impossible inside a place like the Apple Barrel. Yet here they are, the bartender who looks about
22
man who could be in his 30s or 40s, followed by another large-statured man, all rocking their
hips side to side, busting their best calypso-inspired moves down the thin strip of floor space
squished between the bar and the tables. The conga line moves three or four steps and then halts,
but the trio does not stop moving to the beat. “We can’t go all the way around because we might
run into the faulty wiring!” the bartender shouts, her arms above her head, swaying to some
island rhythm.
New Orleans is tapping your foot to a funk song as your new friend Jeremy tells you that
there’s something about this city, there’s something about “the fun and the despair,” and you nod
in agreement, keep sipping your beer instead of finishing your homework.
New Orleans is going to Haiti and – amid the wild colors and gritty streets and dirty beaches and
rich stews over rice and poor families somehow surviving and the grins at the mention of Mardi
Gras – feeling not so far from home. It’s going to Haiti and understanding that tragedy and
poverty do not always equal misery, that sometimes joy of life can be gritty and relentless, more
violent even than despair.
It’s going to Haiti and feeling like you’ve just met a long-lost family member who has the
same beautifully crooked nose as you.
New Orleans is walking through the French Quarter at twilight and for the first time really
noticing the variations among balconies along Bourbon and Royal streets, the distinct personality
23
circles that add warm yellows and oranges to the cool greens of the plants and the purple dusk.
It’s walking among these things and seeing them fresh, gawking with wonder like a bewildered
tourist, alarmed at the presence of beauty, artistry that you completely forgot amid that day’s
dealings with broken roads and broken government and people who are even more dysfunctional
than the streets or government.
It’s stopping in the middle of the road and turning slowly, slowly around to fully take in
the scene before you, and wondering if these balconies and lanterns can possibly make up for the
crippled streets and people that often leave you crippled as well. It’s knowing the answer is
something irrational, something like “yes.” It’s knowing that if you had to explain this answer to
someone from Idaho or New York, you could not. It’s knowing that really, if you had to explain
this answer to yourself, with any kind of actual logic, you could not. New Orleans is losing these
thoughts to the music coming from somewhere just ahead of you. It’s continuing to wander the
streets starry-eyed, breathless, tripping over crooked sidewalks, stumbling into deep potholes that
24
25
The End of Fat Tuesday
Night has fallen on Fat Tuesday when I drive my truck through Uptown to pick up Dan*
for dinner. The streets are empty, settled into that eerie brand of quiet that often follows a violent
storm. The cacophony of earlier – drunken whoops, happy screams, strands of beads clattering
on sidewalks, bags of beads pounding against pavement, chaotic music regulated by relentless
bass – has hushed into an exhausted silence; when I roll down my window, I can even hear the
wind send bottles rolling down the roads and sift through emptied bead bags strewn across the
streets, the soft bumping and shuffling sounds interrupted only by the occasional car horn in the
distance. Tonight’s darkness only partially hides the messy remnants of Mardi Gras day, the litter
of plastic cups, twinkling doubloons, beads glimmering from street signs and tree limbs,
dangling above the mysterious brown soup that pools in potholes and collects along the curbs.
My truck turns off St. Charles Avenue and bounces through potholes and garbage to the
mottled street where Dan’s friend, Sean, lives. I breathe in deep as I park and step to the front
door, then knock. Dan opens the door and behind him, I see Sean and his wife cuddled onto their
living room sofa, semi-prone and almost motionless. Their house, too, is silent. Dan steps onto
the porch with me, lights a cigarette, takes a drag.
“How was Zulu?” he asks.
“Great,” I say. “I didn’t catch any coconuts, though.”
Dan is a lover of all things uniquely South Louisiana, especially New Orleans. He is a
lover of Zapp’s Cajun Crawtator potato chips, Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager, and Snake and
Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge. Above all, he is a lover of Mardi Gras. And Zulu is one of Dan’s
26
prevented him from catching Zulu this morning, and standing on the porch, I know he grieves
this.
I think of last Mardi Gras, when Dan and I woke next to each other early Fat Tuesday,
slouched out of his bed in Thibodaux, and sipped warm coffee from travel mugs on our
hour-long drive to New Orleans. Everyone I know watches the parade downtown on Canal Street,
where the parade forces tired revelers out of bed at 8 a.m., but Dan insisted on his usual post near
Basin Street, where the parade arrives much later for a more energetic crowd. We joined a small
family positioned on the curb, huddling close until we could join the clamor for coconuts,
begging and grabbing until we claimed four. Later, we picked up a sack of crawfish from a
dirt-covered corner store and ate them next to the Mississippi River. We drank Abita beer and lay
cuddled on the spiky grass, drifting near sleep. I stared at his face as he lay there, trying to record
the curve of his upper lip, the surprisingly thick curls, the unusual shape of his eyes, the low
register of his voice, the effeminate way he holds a cigarette, that nervous thing he does with his
tongue. I struggled to focus on present tense – the breeze, the river, the arms around me – but my
mind wafted toward the near future, when he would move thousands of miles away from this
breeze along this river.
Weeks later, when Dan had settled into his new apartment in Portland, he texted me early
one morning: I miss you. A lot. Just saying.
After that, I would receive texts from him now and then, but they usually centered on
discoveries of some edible slice of South Louisiana culture hidden among the Pacific
Northwest’s organic offerings. A texted photo of Zapp’s Potato Chips in a Trader Joe’s grocery
store. A photo of a barbecued-tofu po-boy at a Portland restaurant. A photo of Abita beer found at
27
exclamations. Boosh! Sometimes, I would send back photos of New Orleans items that brought
him or Portland to mind: a bottle of the new Abita Satsuma seasonal, vegan po-boys at a street
fair, a homemade sign banning drum circles.
Man, I miss that city, he would respond. I really miss that city.
Tonight, a full year after our short-lived romance, we enjoy a meal at The Delachaise, a
swanky Uptown restaurant with an impressive whiskey menu. We return fast to our comfortable
conversational rhythm, discussing my work, his schooling, our Mardi Gras, mutual friends. Yes,
Kat is still dating Kelly. Nope, haven’t seen zombie guy lately. Raymond says he’s moving soon,
do you think that will actually happen?
Tomorrow, Dan leaves again for Portland. But first, we make the night stretch farther by
visiting one of my favorite bars, The Saint. We walk together down the dim sidewalk, our voices
nearly overridden by the eternal buzz of the broken streetlight nearby. The Saint, a shadowy dive
bar glowing with Christmas lights and prayer candles, provides an altar to cheap beer and long
nights. Statues of the Virgin Mary and other religious icons gaze blankly as we sip Abita and
High Life. Dan invites his friend Sean to join us, and the ache in my chest sharpens. I try to
remember that Sean causes no more intrusion, no more flame-quenching force than the
2,000-plus miles that distance Dan and me. Sean takes a seat next to us, and the conversation turns to
women and the beauty of the female body.
I envision Dan’s and my bodies, at one time posed together as the bodies of lovers. An
even holier vision emerges, this one a secret fantasy of Dan asking me to move to Portland. I see
us walking through the city’s Chinese tea garden, sitting close on a bench, surrounded by delicate
flowers as we sip imported tea. I see us exploring the geometric series of fountains downtown,
28
walking the shiny-clean streets together, holding hands in the mild spring sunshine, untouched by
the constant drizzle of the city’s winter rains.
The deep voices of Dan and Sean break my trance, and I rejoin the conversation,
laughing and joking, adding a few more hours to our good times. And I struggle to ignore the
looming end of Fat Tuesday’s fun. When that end comes, Dan offers to walk me outside and for a
moment, I am hopeful. Outside, we stand alone together for a moment under the anxious buzz of
the streetlight, and I hug him, tight, digging my fingers into the back of his wooly black pea coat.
I glance up at him for a moment, my expression questioning. He answers by turning his head to
the side, ensuring our lips do not meet.
29
My Name is Welmon Sharlhorne
I am crouched on the sidewalk outside Check Point Charlie’s, a 24-hour
Laundromat/bar/pot-exchange/urban-nomad receptacle in New Orleans, on a Sunday afternoon, trying to make a
phone call for work while my clothes wash, when I spot him, Welmon Sharlhorne, approaching.
Today, Welmon wears a very Welmon-style outfit, a Welmon uniform of sorts: the
ever-present black Kangol cap, black-framed eyeglasses with no lenses, dress slacks, pack of Kools
stuffed in the pocket of his striped button-up linen shirt, the entire ensemble accented by this
afternoon’s choice of glimmering jewelry— a shiny watch worn over one shirt cuff and two
large gold necklaces hanging from his neck, one necklace looking like a gold Mardi Gras bead
with lengthy golden fish as beads and the other a gold chain ending in a giant golden treble clef.
I smile my hello and Welmon greets me in an oddly distant tone, his eyes hard, and then
launches into a growling tirade about how he needs $19 because he needs to pay someone $19
and he doesn’t have it and all the people who would usually give him money are out of town. I
ask why he needs $19. For rent? He eyeballs me with an annoyed look and says, “Now I’m not
going to tell you that.”
I laugh and he jerks to attention, recognition lighting his eyes.
“Oh, it’s you,’ he says, and his whole body, even his voice, seems to relax into a more
flamboyant, more Welmon-esque posture, his cane now held with more of a flair, as if some
benevolent witch had abruptly tapped him with a wand to unfreeze him.
His voice unfrozen, he now fusses loudly about the $19 owed this mysterious man,
preaching to all of the empty corner about how he doesn’t like this “penny-ante shit” or this
“penny-ante nigger.”
30
I ask if he would really draw me a picture and he looks annoyed again and says, “You
know I will.”
I start digging in my backpack, searching for a $20 but find nothing but a few crumpled
dollar bills. “Sorry, Welmon,” I say, “I’m broke, too. I’m in school. You know I’m broke.”
“That’s all right,” he says, his voice soft, and lets me keep my bills.
I met Welmon Sharlhorne in 2007 back in Houma, a small oilfield city about 60 miles southwest
of New Orleans. I was living there, working at the city’s newspaper, covering local culture and
the arts-and-entertainment scene, which was expanding and diversifying thanks to a group of
twenty-somethings determined to move Houma beyond the safe standbys of watercolor flowers
and Neil Simon plays. My friend, Glenda, leader of the Houma Regional Arts Council, called
one morning to tell me that the Arts Council was about to hold a very interesting art exhibit:
pen-and-ink work by an ex-con who taught himself to draw using Bic pens on manila folders. He
used these tools because they were the only ones available to him during his years in Louisiana’s
Angola State Prison. Glenda told me the artist, who was born and raised in Houma, had tried to
get the Arts Council to show his work years ago, but the leaders brushed him off.
Intrigued by the story, I rushed over to the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum, where
the exhibit was housed, to meet this Welmon Sharlhorne. Despite the nontraditional art
supplies—ink pens and manila folders, I expected to find traditional folk-art scenes: women in
cotton dresses hanging clothes onto lines with babies at their feet, men in overalls carrying
buckets of cattle feed and conducting other rural chores. Instead, I discovered my favorite folk or
31
mischievous smiles, wild school buses, sharp church buildings, and always, somewhere within
the curved lines of the birds or straight lines of the cathedrals, a clock counting the time.
I’m not sure what I expected in terms of artist personality, but I’m sure I did not expect
what I found.
When I arrived at the Waterlife Museum, I found a 54-year-old Kangol-capped man relaxing on
the porch with a cigarette—because he had already been thrown out of the museum exhibiting
his work. Welmon had tried to defy the museum’s non-smoking policies and then gotten smart
with Ms. Pearla, the stout woman who runs the reception desk. My friend Glenda had to
sweet-talk a peeved Ms. Pearla into letting Welmon back in so he could be interviewed.
The video portion of the interview took roughly three times as long as I expected, as Mr.
Sharlhorne turned out to be somewhat of a prima donna, wanting his tools arranged just so on the
table, needing another cigarette before he could draw on camera, rambling at length about what
he would say to children if he could host a children’s show. His voice boasted a rich, melodic
quality that he enhanced by speaking in rhyme, with occasional bursts into songs by Beyoncé,
Ray Charles, the Mardi Gras Indians. Like a one-man Broadway musical, Welmon’s stories and
life advice often morphed straight into song. “To the left, to the left…”
He wore glasses with no lenses yet still put them on when looking at printed material, as
though they somehow helped him see. I respect people with that kind of commitment.
Welmon’s perpetually stylish attire can distract from other aspects of his appearance, but
look past the shimmering chains and gold- or black-rimmed glasses and you’ll find a naturally
attractive man. His skin is a rich brown, the color of coffee with just a touch of milk, and much
smoother than his age, 61, would suggest. His dark brown eyes crinkle at the corners and his lips
32
that Welmon’s mouth hangs slightly in that particular way mouths hang when they contain no
teeth. I’m not sure when Welmon lost his teeth, but after Hurricane Katrina, benefactors in
Maryland gave him living space for a while and offered to buy him dentures. He told me the
dentist took a mold of his gums and everything, started the work of creating his teeth, but
Welmon left Maryland before the teeth were done.
“Fuck them teeth,” Welmon said. “I was homesick.”
Welmon was just the sort of outlandish and complicated person I gravitate toward, which may be
why the Arts Council leaders contacted me instead of my coworkers. During my four years at the
newspaper, I had developed a reputation for spotlighting the bizarre. When someone heard about
a motorcycle-drawn hearse, a roadside stand selling raccoon meat, a lost cat located by a cat
psychic, or a guy who rode out a hurricane in a boat on land, they often called me first.
During our 2007 interview, Welmon sipped coffee with too much sugar—too much sugar I say
because my diabetic new friend fell asleep during the interview. I asked him a question and he
leaned back, shut his eyes, and I waited for some deep answer drawn from the depths of his soul.
Instead, I heard light snoring and noticed his mouth agape. I had to wake him twice during the
interview.
He was like an ex-con Dr. Seuss with narcolepsy.
I loved him already.
Since moving to New Orleans, I spot Welmon fairly regularly, at least once or twice a month, to
my delight. Shortly after my arrival here, I began tracking and recording my Welmon sightings,
creating a Facebook page in his honor partly to show off his artwork but also so others can track
33
who seem eager for updates on their wandering uncle, cousin, brother. “Hi, Uncle Welmon!”
they sometimes write. Or “Hey Unk I was stopping by to say hello... Happy Father's Day and I
hope all is well....”The page now includes more than 300 fans who post photos and stories of
their encounters with Welmon. There are photos of Welmon with visitors from all over the
country, with local news anchors, with author Dick Gregory. There is Welmon in Houston,
Welmon in Atlanta, Welmon in Treme and the French Quarter and the Marigny.
Welmon himself is not among the fans. He doesn’t really use the Internet from what I can
tell. He also, from what I can tell, can’t read. Welmon has never told me that he cannot read, and
I have never asked. I think someone else suggested to me that Welmon was illiterate and at that
suggestion, pieces snapped into place, the way subtle oddities strewn throughout a suspense film
suddenly make sense when the mystery is solved. I realized that some of Welmon’s rituals and
demands were not just the quirks of an eccentric man, but the quirks of an eccentric man who
either cannot read or does not read well.
When I first started bumping into Welmon in New Orleans, we went through a ritual: he
would demand that I get him a cup of water with no ice and then read aloud from an article
written about him, collected in a blue plastic binder that holds his photos and newspaper
clippings. As I read the description of Welmon’s appearance, Welmon would illustrate each part,
lifting his glasses slightly up and back down, patting the pack of Kools in his front pocket. When
Welmon showed his work at the Waterlife Museum, Glenda could not get him to write
descriptions to accompany his drawings, so she wound up following Welmon around the display,
scribbling notes as Welmon dictated rhyming thoughts inspired by each piece. These impromptu
34
Welmon’s ornery nature. Now, I realize the placards symbolize how Welmon’s proud,
unapologetic commitment to his own style turns deficiencies into poetry.
I often explain to his family and fans that in all likelihood, Welmon doesn’t see the
Facebook fan page. I get responses such as this one, from Alicia Stovall of Houma: "Hi laura i
HIGHLY doubt he uses internet lol but if u see him around tell him his nieces say hi.”
I try to remember to do this, to tell Welmon hello from Alicia and Tara and people living across
the United States who remember Welmon as the guy who drew them a picture, who talked them
out of a cigarette, who entertained them during a walk on Decatur Street, who gave them a
lasting memory of New Orleans that still makes them laugh. The Facebook page gets posts like
“We talked for over an hour about our need and love to create art,” and “we met you in new
Orleans over 15 years ago where you drew a piece of your art on an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper
for a couple of drinks.” Posts like “I’ve got his number in my phone. No idea how it got there”
and “Hi this is Kayden from Saturday in the French Quarter, you gave my dad your nuber and
some pinneapple Vodka(sic).”I turn Kayden’s post into a status update, letting the online world
know that Welmon is alive and well and sharing his pineapple vodka.
The public updates are an expansion of the private e-mail and in-person Welmon updates shared
for years among my art friends in Houma. Since his show there in 2007, my friends and I often
alert each other to Welmon sightings and regale each other with tales of Welmon being Welmon.
An email from Glenda in March 2009, with the subject line “Welmon here right now:”
“Hey Laura,
Welmon is in my office right now, drinking coke, and drawing me a long overdue
picture. I gave him some candy cigarettes, and he’s smoking them.
35 We have established a collection of Welmon lore.
There’s the time Welmon’s close lawyer friend and benefactor, Dean, drove Welmon,
Glenda, and our artist friend Andrea to lunch at the Pit Stop Restaurant, a 24-hour greasy spoon
near the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Houma and right next to the Sugar Bowl Motel, notorious
for its prostitutes and drugs, the whole way there Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” blaring from the
radio at Welmon’s request, Welmon’s cane sticking in and out the window of the powder-blue
Cadillac in time to the beat.
There’s the time Welmon, just before his art show in Houma, got hit by a large truck
while crossing a street in the city’s downtown. A red light turned green and the truck’s driver hit
the gas pedal. The force knocked Welmon to the ground.
“It sounded like a sound you never heard,” he told me. “My head went scroop, my
glasses went boop.”
The crash broke Welmon’s drawing arm in three places, forcing him to wear a cast during
the show. He sued the driver and won thousands.
There’s the time Welmon lost those thousands of dollars during a wild night that started
in Houma with his giving generous donations to his barber and then progressed to New Orleans,
where hundred-dollar bills reportedly rained on the cab driver who transported Welmon from
Houma, on random gamblers at Harrah’s casino, and on hookers attached to either of Welmon’s
arms.
I try to carry a camera and pen at all times, so when I spot Welmon, I can document his most
36
when he sees me, tells me to get out my camera, to write this down, to tell the world that
Welmon Sharlhorne can be reached at this number.
“Write this down,” he tells me. “No this is not Mike Jones, My name is Welmon Sharlhorne, the
Artist, you can call me, here's my number, don't you see. I may be home or I might be gone but
I'll get to my telephone and call you right on later on. It's 504....”
The tourists and Frenchmen Street characters –the guy selling pipes on the corner, the woman
selling used books and clothing near the Japanese restaurant, the doormen for various music
clubs—often seem surprised when I approach Welmon and give him a hug.
“This is my home-girl,” he tells them, and I can tell by their confused expressions that
they do not expect a youngish, clean-cut-looking white woman to be Welmon’s “home-girl.”
“We’re from the same place,” I explain. “He’s from Houma, and I’m from Thibodaux.
They’re really close together.”
This explanation seems to satisfy people, though our friendship goes deeper than sharing
a Cajun-country homeland. I appreciate his oddity, his artwork, and his ability to make an
ordinary night into an entertaining event. I especially admire his talents for hustling, for
surviving and thriving with whatever cards he’s dealt. He appreciates me, too.
“You a cold-blooded motherfucker,” he tells me one time.
“I like you so much,” he tells me another time.
“I like you so much, too,” I say.
I like watching Welmon with newbies, the unsuspecting tourist who looks him over, sees
his sometimes shoeless feet resting against the sidewalk in their black socks and assume he is
another street character looking to make a buck—which he is. But when he tells them he is a
37
the smiles and exchanged looks as they wordlessly decide to play along with this stylish man
who thinks he’s a real artist.
“My name is Welmon Sharlhorne,” Welmon announces to them, drawing out each
syllable of his name with a dramatic pizzazz, like a circus ringmaster introducing the most
exciting act under the tent. The introduction has a sweeping “ta-da!” feel. “I’m an artist.”
They smile politely, but Welmon has learned how to change the polite smiles into
surprised jaw-drops.
“You got Internet on your phone?” he asks in that deep, melodic voice.
They pop out their phones. Sure, why not? The man is entertaining.
Welmon repeats his name, and when they do an Internet search, sure enough, there he is
smiling that sly Welmon smile, posed with his magical, one-of-a-kind drawings
“I’m in the Smithsonian,” he says.
And he is.
Welmon’s story remains something of a mystery to me, even after long hours of research and six
years’ worth of encounters with him. Online biographies of Welmon, most of them posted on
gallery and other art-related websites, tend to be vague and vary in their details, sometimes
significantly. Some of the bios also differ from the information found in court records. Some of
the bios say Welmon served twenty-two years in Angola for non-violent crimes largely related to
a disagreement over payment for yard work, which I find tough to believe.
38
Welmon was born Aug. 17, 1952, in Houma as the fourth of 17 children. He grew up hunting
fox, squirrels, raccoons, and rabbits with his best friend, Ezekiel Johnson. He also made a lot of
his own toys and entertained his younger siblings (MarciaWeberArtObjects.com). Welmon says
he endured harsh disadvantages growing up in the Deep South during an era of open
discrimination and racism (UncleShadow.org).
“My mom and dad were some good parents to me,” Welmon told me during our 2007 interview.
“They sent me to school.”
Welmon said he was an intelligent little boy and showed a propensity for drawing as
early as age 6. But he was only seven years old when he rebelled against his parents’ wishes and
started playing hooky from school with his “so-called friends.” He didn’t make it past the third
grade, he said.
At 14, Welmon got in trouble and spent the next four years in a segregated juvenile-detention
center just north of Baton Rouge. Though Welmon told me his crime was skipping school, online
bios say the crime involved robbery. At 18, Welmon was released from the detention center and
began independently mowing lawns for money (UncleShadow.org). He likely did this yard work
in Houma, though some bios claim New Orleans.
Soon after his release, Welmon got in trouble again. Some online bios say he was convicted of
simple burglary and extortion, mainly due to the discrepancy in payment for his lawn-mowing
services.
Welmon told me he spent more than 20 years in Angola for extortion, burglary, and
39
“Being locked up is a miserable thing, my friend,” he said.
A court document from 1989 shows Welmon went to prison that year for attempted extortion.
According to the document, the charge arose from this: Welmon entered a dress shop on
Prospect Street in Houma and told the owner that he had recently been released from Angola and
would like help from her in the form of a “donation.” When the shopkeeper declined, Welmon
refused to leave her store and told her, “something might happen—people that give me money,
things don't happen to their building.” The owner gave Welmon $10, and he left.
The court sentenced him to the maximum time, seven-and-a-half years, after considering
his previous criminal record, which included convictions of simple burglary in 1972 and armed
robbery and “a crime against nature” in 1973. The document explains: “The trial court stated that
it felt there was not only an undue risk but a moral certainty that, during any period of suspended
or probated sentence, defendant would commit another crime, based on defendant's previous
behavior.”
Welmon told me he started making art in prison around age 28 or 29. He first built hotels
from matchsticks and then moved on to what he called “circle art,” the fantastical drawings for
which he is now known. He asked for pens and manila envelopes to write his lawyer, a lawyer
that did not exist, according to some bios (and this I find believable). He used tongue depressors
from the infirmary to form the straight lines in his art.
He now draws on other materials, including mat boards, but still uses red, blue, and black
ink pens.
“I like ink cause ink looks like snake colors to me,” he told me in 2007. “I can’t stand a
40
The decades behind bars also continue to influence his work, most noticeably in the form
of a clock.
“People often ask me, ‘Why a clock always in there?” Welmon told me. During his stay
in Angola, “I had so much time to think about time, that I had time on my mind while doing
time.”
“When the judge passed sentence on me for these charges, that’s when time became so
different. Number one, you took time out of your precious time of freedom to be so
small-minded and commit a crime,” he said.
Outside prison walls, Welmon’s art began flourishing. An art gallery in New York took
notice and in the 1980s, his work became a hot commodity in art circles, said Dean Church, the
New Orleans attorney and longtime friend of Welmon’s, who spoke to me by phone in 2007.
“He was the darling of the outsider art world, but he was never there to enjoy it,” Church
told me.
Welmon last left prison in 1997. He hit the streets without much material wealth, leaving
him to peddle his artwork around Houma and New Orleans.
He also, for the first time, got to see his artwork exhibited on museum walls.
I commissioned my own piece of Welmon work around 2010, after hearing that Welmon had
returned to Houma from his travels to Houston and New Orleans. I knew that with Welmon
haggling would be unavoidable, so I planned my approach before calling him from my cubicle in
